Is CIA agent and future President Jack Ryan up for competing with the likes of cooler action heroes like Jason Bourne? Moviehole says that Philip Noyce, the director of ’90s Jack Ryan vehicles Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger,Â has personally confirmed that he is not attached to a fifth film in the series but that one is being prepped to star actor Ryan Gosling. Gosling would be the fourth actor to take on the role, following Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October), Harrison Ford (the Noyce films), and your favorite, Ben Affleck (2002’s The Sum of All Fears).

Moreover, Noyce previously confirmed that a Jack Ryan movie was in the works but would not involve input from the character’s creator, author Tom Clancy. It seems that Paramount Pictures owns the movie rights to Jack Ryan and can make him bark or hop on one leg at will. How about some more Noyce? Noyce was attached to direct a film entitled By Any Means Necessary about “a cop who turns to a mobster for inside information to prevent a terrorist attack,” but director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) is now on board. The consensus seems to be that this film will be massaged into a young Jack Ryan picture starring Gosling a la Affleck’s outing.

Gosling’s performance in The Notebook earned the females’ attention, Half Nelson earned him an Oscar nom, Fracture opposite Anthony Hopkins upped his exposure, and his last film, Lars and the Real Girl, was thought to be a quirky indie sleeper like Juno but proved a non-starter and split critics. A big budget action film sounds about right, unless he wants to keep to the Johnny Depp route. Any Tom Clancy fans not stoked about this news?